Things to Consider:

• Elements of the Gothic (see video ):
• Atmosphere of mystery and suspense (indeterminacy of time)
• Religion, esp. Catholic church, as oppressive force
  
• Setting in old/decayed castle
• Omens, portents, visions
• Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events
• High, even overwrought emotion
• Metonymy of gloom and horror
• Religion vs. Superstition
  
• Relationship with Nature

and three

and unassigned poems

):
Biographia Literaria:
523:

• Explain Coleridge's concepts of the primary and secondary imaginations and the fancy.

• Describe the original plan for the division of labor for Lyrical Ballads.
• Explain Coleridge's concept of the "willing suspension of disbelief" (524).

• What, according to Coleridge, is the task of the poet?

"The Three Graves" (ca. 1797-98, pub. 1809)
Author's Preface:
206:

• Coleridge describes the portion of the poem published in 1809 (Parts Three and Four) as a "fragment, not of a Poem, but of a common Ballad-tale" (206). Explain his distinction.

208:

• Explain Coleridge's statement that he found in the story behind the poem "striking proof of the possible effect on the imagination, from an Idea violently and suddenly impressed on it (208). (See also his statement from the 1818 edition of The Friend quoted on page 511 of the editor's notes in the right hand column.)

Poem Proper:

• How does this poem compare with Wordsworth's "Goody Blake and Harry Gill"?
• Describe the coherence of the first two parts with the second two parts.
• Explain: 
• Beneath the foulest mother's curse
• No child could ever thrive:
• A mother is a mother still,
• The holiest thing alive (256-59).
• cf. "The Ancient Mariner": "An orphan’s curse would drag to Hell/A spirit from on high" (257-58).
  

• Describe the Pantisocracy scheme.
• Explain the significance of the annuity granted to Coleridge by the Wedgwoods.

• Explain: "[C]ulture,  the nation's artistic and spiritual heritage, represents a force with the power to combat the fragmentation of a modern, market-driven society and to restore a common, collective life" (470).
  

• What according to Coleridge, are the two cardinal points of poetry?

525:

• What, according to Coleridge, is the difference between a poem and a prose composition?

526:

• Explain: "Pleasure, and that of the highest and most permanent kind, may result from the attainment of the end; but it is not itself the immediate end" (526).
• How does Coleride ultimately define a poem? How does this view compare with Wordsworth's?

• Explain the blessing the mother offers in lines 182-95. Is it really a blessing?
• Explain the significance of Ash Wednesday to the poem.
• Why does the mother curse Ellen in lines 312-19?
• How seriously does Ellen take this curse? Explain.
• Why does Ellen declare that Mary is like her mother (447)?
• What spot is being referred to in line 483?
• Explain Edward's dream and the responses to it (528-33).
  

• What is an Eolian harp? (see footnote)
• What is a conversation poem? (see footnote)

• Explain Coleridge's concept of the one life (26).
• What is Coleridge's implied response to his own question in 44-48?
• Explain Coleridge's response to Sara's perceived reproach to him in the final stanza.

• Describe the speaker's situation as the poem opens.
• What is the "secret ministry" of frost (see also line 72)?

• Explain the shift in line 23.
• How does his current experience of the film compare with Coleridge's experiences at school?
• What difference does Coleridge foresee between his child's childhood and his own (48ff)?

• How, according to Coleridge,  is the lute like a coy maid?
• In what way, according to Coleridge, is he like the lute?

• Why does the "extreme silentness" (10) disturb the speaker?
• Explain Coleridge's footnote to the reference to the film in line 15.

• How does this poem compare with Wordsworth's "Intimations Ode"?

• How does the Eolian lute (harp) in this poem compared to that described in Coleridge's "The Eolian Harp"?
  
• Explain lines 17-20.

512:

• Explain: "I see them all so excellently fair, / I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!" (37-38).
• Explain: "I may not hope from outward forms to win / The passion and the life, whose fountains are within" (45-46).

• How do descriptions of "shaping spirit of imagination" (86) and the claim that "We receive but what we give, / And in our life alone does Nature live" (47-48) compare with "the artfully equivocal representation of the exchange of mind and nature in 'Tintern Abbey [esp. 103-112]?'" (CLA 311).
• Explain lines 67-70.
• How is the wind functioning in lines 96ff?

• What friend is he discussing in lines 127-136?
• Explain the final three lines.

• Explain the imagery used in lines 21-22.
• How does the reference to genial spirits (39) compare with the description found in "Tintern Abbey" (111ff)?

513:

• Compare lines 76-81 with "Intimations Ode," lines 1-9.

• "Poem and prose introduction together enact the quintessential fiction of the so-called fragment" (CLA 309).
• "Interruption and loss are the necessary guarantors . . . of ideal vision:  the fragment is the form that artfully intimates a whole beyond human potential to achieve" (CLA 309).
• Interesting interpretive essay 
• Forms of Creation/Creativity
• Portrayal of the Feminine and Sexuality
  

• Explain: "if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort" (491).
  
• How does this statement reflect Wordsworth's concept of "emotion reflected in tranquility" (348)?
  
• Explain: "All the rest had  passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast" (491).

• What exactly is this poem about?
• Describe the portrayal of women in this poem. 
• Describe the figure of the poet in this poem.

• Describe the savage place of stanza two.
• Explain the connection between sexuality and war in the second stanza.
  
• Explain the final stanza.
  

• Elements of the Gothic :
• Atmosphere of mystery and suspense (indeterminacy of time)
• Religion, esp. Catholic church, as oppressive force
  
• Setting in old/decayed castle
• Omens, portents, visions
• Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events
• High, even overwrought emotion
• Women in distress
• Metonymy of gloom and horror
  
• Dove imagery and conflation of Christabel (Bard Bracy's report of dream) and Geraldine (Sir Leoline's response)
• Portrayal of Sexuality
• Snake Imagery

• Why does Coleridge make such specific efforts in the preface to counter potential threats of plagiarism?

• Describe the imagery that is used to open the poem (1-22).  What kind of mood is established?
• Why does Christabel go into the woods to pray instead of staying at home?

• How plausible is Geraldine's story of how she happened to be at the oak tree?  Explain.

• Explain the footnote to line 132.

• Explain lines 145-53.

• Explain lines 252-54.

• What is the significance of the comparison of Geraldine to a mother in lines 298-301?

• Why does Christabel believe she has sinned (381)?

• Explain Bard Bracy's dream.

• Explain Geraldine's comments in lines 210-13. In what ways, if at all, are these lines reminiscent of the competition between Death and Life-in-Death in the "Ancient Mariner" (195-98)? Explain.

• What is the purpose of the image of the "three sinful sextons' ghosts" (353)?

• Who is Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine (407)?
• Explain lines 433-43. Is this a realistic promise? Explain.

• Explain lines 447-62.

• Is it possible to passively imitate someone (605)?  Explain.

508:

• Why does Leoline experience rage and pain (638)?
• Why does Leoline feel dishonored?

• How does "The Conclusion to Part 2" relate to the narrative that precedes it?